The Advocate

Leslie Grant (SAR’76) wants to improve dental care for all and has made public advocacy an important part of her practice.

By Taylor McNeil

 

Meghan Desale“In whatever form I can, I advocate for dental coverage and for preventive care,” says Leslie Grant (SAR’76).

 

 

More than 47 million people in the UnitedStates have no medical insurance, but more than double that number — 108 million — don’t carry any dental insurance. That’s got to change, says Leslie Grant (SAR’76), a dentist and recent president of the National Dental Association, which represents minorities in the field. Grant has made it her mission to educate people about the need for proper dental care, both in her practice in the Baltimore area, where her patients include poor and homeless people, and in her role as a public figure.

“In whatever form I can, I advocate for coverage and for preventive care,” she says. For instance, she was invited to the Congressional Black Caucus Brain Trust meeting last August to speak about the shortcomings in dental insurance, and she’s been on the radio, promoting preventive care on the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner Morning Show. She’s also taken her mission abroad. In 1999, she traveled to El Salvador on a dental mission organized by her church and saw some 300 patients for urgent care and preventive work, “a great experience,” she says.

Grant majored in speech pathology at Sargent College, but she went on to study dentistry because she wanted to learn more about the mechanics of the mouth.

 

She enjoys her work as a dentist —and as an advocate. “My passion,” she says, “is to inform others about the travesty of the lack of dental care in this country.”